Despite it's long and successful history, one achievement has eluded the Mortal Kombat series; a truly tournament-viable game for players to enjoy for years. Despite the nostalgia associated with classics such as Mortal Kombat II and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, the series was only ever to maintain itself on the tournament scene with sporadic appearances at less known events. Today, the drought officially ends and the upcoming Mortal Kombat, which has promised to breath new life into the series, has been added to the Evo 2011 lineup!

During E3, we heard the first rumblings of a game designed with high level gameplay in mind. Series co-creator and project lead Ed Boon stated that while Mortal Kombat has always appealed to the casual player and would continue to do so, the team for the first time was taking aim at a different audience; high level players. Throughout the months since, the community has been witness to some of the most impressive looking Mortal Kombat footage in its history. Fully abandoning the polarizing dial-up combo system, the game features everything required of a true masterpiece in the genre. Special attention has been paid to the engine this time around, from the team answering questions in-depth on the and promising patches post-release if any problems exist.

The Evo Championship Series is perhaps the world's best known fighting game competition and the game's inclusion in it assures of it in many others as well. We would like to congratulate the Mortal Kombat team for this achievement! Shoryuken's live podcast Wakeup SRK featuring Mr. Wizard, Evo organizer, confirmed the list as follows:

Marvel vs. Capcom 3
Super Street Fighter IV
Tekken 6
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift
Mortal Kombat 9

As it stands, Mortal Kombat will feature only the single player mode. PS3 exclusive character Kratos will likely not be allowed. In addition, when asked about censoring Mortal Kombat's gore and fatalities, it was revealed that would likely be done.

Mortal Kombat making the lineup this year is a great victory for Netherrealm Studios, as a goal of the development team was to reach out to hardcore fighting game players more than they ever had before. However, this victory is only one in what will need to be a long battle. Mortal Kombat will need a tournament following to maintain its place on the Evo lineup in the years to come, and the Mortal Kombat community will need to step up and prove that we can support a tournament-viable game by attending this tournament. The more that show up specifically for Mortal Kombat, the higher the chance the game and its sequels return for Evo each year as other series, such as Street Figther and Tekken, do. So don't take this lightly; support Mortal Kombat by attending tournament events if possible and spread the word Mortal Kombat has arrived on the scene!